


All That Matters

by octavia74



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Eventual Smut, F/M, Happy Ending, Kind of dark, Past Relationship(s), Rey gets really depressed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:42:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22352026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/octavia74/pseuds/octavia74
Summary: Ben gets offered his dream job at Google and wants Rey to move to California with him. They've only been together two months; it'd be crazy for her to go with him. They break up, and Rey has to deal with the consequences.
Relationships: Rey & Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 2
Kudos: 73





	All That Matters

Ben comes into Rey’s apartment quickly, baring even closing the door behind him as he calls to her.

“I’m in the kitchen!” Rey calls back. 

Ben hurries in, his face bright, still wearing his rain-jacket. “Rey,” he says breathy and excited, “I got the job!”

“What?!” Rey drops the spatula she was holding. “You got the job?” She jumps into his arms, “Ben, of course you did, you’re so amazing!”

“I just- I can’t believe it. I’ve wanted to work at Google my whole life!”

“I know, Ben. I’m so happy for you!” 

He lets go of her and presses his forehead against hers, “I can’t believe they hired me after just a video interview.”

“I can!” Rey insists. “Of course they wanted you!”

He leans against the counter and Rey goes back to cooking. They’re quiet for a while and then Ben says, “I would have to move to California, you know, if I took it.”

Rey desperately tries to shove down her emotions and says, “ _ If  _ you take it? Ben you have to take it.”

“Will you- would you come out there with me?”

That’s the big question, isn’t it? Would she leave her family, her friends, her city, and move across the country with a guy she’s been dating for two months? 

“Ben,” she says softly, setting down the spatula again. She can tell he knows what her answer will be, but neither of them want to face this. 

“Rey,” he insists. “I know that we’ve only been together a little while, but what we have is real, and we have to fight for that.”

“Ben,” she says again, leaning against the stove, looking at him sadly. She can’t think of anything else to say.

“I would go with you,” he tells her, not looking at her.

“But Ben, you don’t-” she breaks off. 

He continues her thought, “I don’t have family or friends here.”

“You do have friends.”

“Not like yours. No one that it would be hard to leave.”

“I just- Ben, I can’t.”

He still doesn’t look at her, running his hands through his hair. He’s trying to keep his face stony, but he looks broken. “You’re really going to make me decide? Between the job and you?”

Rey takes a big breath and makes her decision, “No, Ben, I wouldn’t do that to you.”

He finally looks at her, his eyes intensely staring into hers. He’s still hopeful. 

“You have to take the job,” Rey explains.

A terrible understanding crosses his face. “You’re breaking up with me?” he whispers. 

Rey fights desperately to keep from crying. “It’s your dream, Ben. I won’t keep you from that.”

He rubs his face with his hand, trying to comfort himself. Rey wants to hug him but knows she just gave up that right. 

“You-” he starts but he stops, shaking his head. “Fine,” he says bitterly. “Fine, I’ll go.”

“Ben,” Rey wants to say something, anything, to let him know she still loves him, that this isn’t about that, but nothing comes to her. 

“Goodbye, Rey,” he says, and leaves.

* * *

“I knew he had applied for it when I started dating him,” Rey says forlornly as she takes her third drink from the waiter. Rose is watching her cautiously, and the same expression is shown on Poe’s and Finn’s faces. They’ve brought her out to cheer her up. Spoiler alert: it’s not working.

Rey continues, sipping her drink between sentences, “but I just tried to forget about it. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Look, girl, I know this sucks,” Poe says, rubbing her shoulders, “but your decision is understandable. You haven’t been together that long, and…”

“And it’d be crazy for me to move to Cali with a guy I barely know,” Rey finishes. “I know.”

“And that doesn’t make it hurt any less,” Finn says, “but just know that we’re all here for you.”

It’s nice of them to try, but Rey really just wants to get drunk alone, so after her drink is finished, she has them walk her back to her apartment, and spends the rest of the night polishing off a wine bottle that was half (okay maybe a quarter) empty already, and cries herself to sleep.

“I know it sounds awful,” Rose says a week later, trying to pull Rey off her couch, “but you need to get him out of your system.”

Rey can’t explain how she doesn’t want to get Ben out of her system, how the only way she can sleep is with his t-shirt bunched up to her face so that she can pretend he’s in bed next to her. 

“I need more time,” Rey mumbles. 

“Okay,” Rose says sympathetically, “but you’re not staying here alone anymore. Let’s go to my place. We can watch Disney movies and eat popcorn.”

She assents just so Rose will stop talking. 

Rey is stuck in a cloud of foggy numbness. She doesn’t want to go out, she doesn’t want to eat, she doesn’t want to talk to anyone. Weeks pass and she knows Ben is in California now. _ Was it worth it? _ she thinks one particularly dark night.  _ Yes _ , she manages to insist to herself. _I_ __t_ ’ll get better. It’s better this way. _

It’s three months later (longer than they were actually together) that Rey finally pulls herself together to go out with Rose. 

“I promise you’ll have fun!” Rose tries to convince her.

Rey manages a weak smile. 

She does meet a guy. He has dark hair and dark eyes. He’s tall, though not nearly as tall as Ben was. Rey hopes Rose doesn’t notice the resemblance between the two. He’s nice, sweet, gentlemanly. They dance for a while and he buys her drinks. Rose is very supportive of Rey going home with him. 

They arrive at his apartment and he asks her if she wants a drink. “No thanks,” Rey replies.  _ Let’s just get this over with _ , she thinks.

He smiles at her and kisses her gently. Her body recoils from his lips, but she pushes against him, hoping desperately that she’ll feel better after, that she’ll feel like herself again and not an amorphous blob drifting through day after day. 

He pushes her against the door, running his hands up and down her body. Rey closes her eyes and pulls him against her. His lifts her shirt off and kisses down her neck. Rey tries to turn herself on, thinking of anything but Ben, but it happens anyway. The feeling of his chest against hers, his lips on hers, his tongue in her mouth. She thinks of his hands between her legs as he kisses down her stomach. She sighs hotly and the man against her thinks it’s because of him. He pulls off his shirt and undoes her bra. They kiss more, his hands on her breasts, his tongue licking at her mouth. Rey tries to pretend he tastes like Ben. 

They fuck in his bedroom, Rey’s eyes pressed closed as she ignores that he isn’t who she wants him to be. He’s not a big as Ben; he doesn’t give her quite what she needs. He curls up against her, pulling the blankets over them. 

“That was awesome,” he whispers against her temple.

Rey waits for him to fall asleep before starting to cry. She feels like shit. She can’t believe what she’s just done to this man, who seems like an honestly good person. She can’t believe how alone she feels. Rey gives the guy, Wexley, her phone number in the morning because she feels so awful about using him like that. 

“How was it?” Rose asks when Rey calls her on her way home. 

“Fine,” Rey tries to fake a bright voice.

“Do you think you’ll see him again?” Rose sounds excited. 

“Uh, yeah maybe.”

Rey starts seeing Wexley because she can’t really get any more self-loathing than she already is, and it gets the others off her back to go out with them all the time and meet someone. He is really nice. He gives her flowers and peppers her face with kisses. Rey does slowly stop pretending that he’s Ben, and only has to think about Ben when they have sex to turn herself on. She considers it an improvement, but sometimes she gets so fucking sick with herself, she actually throws up. 

Finn and Poe really like him. They invite him out for ‘boy’s night’, something Ben always flatly refused to attend. Rose invites Wexley to her art opening, winking coyly at Rey.  _ God, if you only knew,  _ Rey thinks _ , you’d think I was a monster _ . 

They’ve been going out for a month and a half when Rey tells Wexley about Ben. She does it because she has absolutely no one else to talk to about it, and yeah, she feels awful about it, but he’s understanding and supportive. She hates herself all the more for how terrible she is to this nice man. She doesn’t tell Wexley about the fantasies she still has about him. That’d be fucking crazy. 

It’s midnight one night, and Rey is tossing and turning in her bed alone. Her phone buzzes and she moans, hoping it’s not Rose or Wexley. She won’t answer it if it is, but she looks at it and nearly faints when it says “Ben”. 

Rey answers, “Ben?”

“Hey,” he sounds good. “Shoot did I wake you up? I totally forgot about the time change.”

“No, it’s alright,” she hopes he chalks the cracks in her voice up to her sleepiness. “I was having trouble falling asleep.”

“Yeah, I haven’t really been sleeping well either.”

“How is it out there?”

“Um, it’s okay. My job is awesome. I love Google, and my coworkers are so cool, but otherwise, it’s weird. I’m happy when I’m at work, but not really when I’m anywhere else.”

Rey doesn’t hear anything after ‘I’m happy’.  _ He’s happy _ , she thinks,  _ happy without me _ . 

“I should tell you,” she says, “I kind of… seeing someone.”

“Oh,” he sounds surprised, “that’s good, I guess.”

“Have you?”

“No, I’m not really looking. I think I should be… alone for a while.”

_ Yeah, I think that about myself _ , Rey thinks. 

“So how's work and everything?” he asks. 

“Same old, same old. I might be traveling next month, which would be nice.”

“Where do you think you’ll go?”

“We have some business in Minnesota that needs someone. There’s also a conference out in San Fran.”

“Whoa, you could come see me!”

“Yeah,” Rey says hesitantly. “I don’t know if they’ll send me.”

“Well, if they do, hit me up!”

“I will,” she says, but she’s unsure whether she could handle seeing him. 

“Well, I’ll let you try to get some sleep. Just wanted to check in. I would like us to be… friends, if you want.”

“Yeah, I’d like that.”

“Okay, well. Talk later?”

“Sure, ‘night Ben.”

“Bye Rey.”

* * *

Rey breaks it off with Wexley. She can’t keep using him like she has. He’s so understanding about it, she almost hurls right then. She’s such a terrible fucking person, she doesn’t deserve anyone like him. She tells him to stay friends with Finn and Poe. “I really don’t mind,” she insists, “and you guys have become so close.” 

She gets sent to Minnesota to meet with a client, and it’s nice to be away from home for a little while. She can almost clear her head. She goes out with a girl she knew in college, Tallie, and they reconnect over their love of trying new food. Tallie takes her to three different authentic restaurants in the Twin Cities. Rey feels almost like herself again. 

She goes back home and can almost look Wexley in the face, though she’s not sure how she sleeps at night with what she did to him. Her only consolation is that he has no idea. 

She does get sent to the conference in San Francisco. She can’t decide if she should tell Ben or not. She thinks she should stay strong, not let into the burning need inside her to see him again, but she eventually caves and texts him. She’ll have a rental car, so she can meet him at his house. She tries not to pretend he’s happy to be seeing her. She tries to ignore how happy  _ she is _ . 

Her heart is pounding violently when she pulls into his driveway. He lives in a little town-home. She sits and stares at it for a few moments before getting out of the car. Her mind is spinning and she can’t quite catch her breath. 

She makes her way to the front door and knocks. He opens it and does look happy to see her.

“Rey,” he smiles, “how are you?”

He hugs her lightly before ushering her into his house. It’s a nice place, though a little bare, as if he hasn’t fully moved in yet, as if he’s only planning to stay for a while. 

“I’m okay, Ben. How are you?”

“Good, it’s good to see you.”

“You too.” Rey sits on the couch and Ben brings her a glass of wine. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. How’s the conference?”

They talk for a while, Rey talks about her job, Ben tells her about his. It’s nice to be in his presence again, like being able to breathe after her head has been underwater for too long.

“How’s, uh, that guy you’ve been seeing?” Ben asks hesitantly after a while. 

“We split up,” Rey tells him quietly, turning her wineglass around in her hands. 

“I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s alright, he was just- it wasn’t really serious.”

“How long were you guys together?”

Rey taps her fingers on her glass. “Like two months? I kept putting it off because Finn and Poe liked him so much.”

Ben does not try to hide his emotions; he’s never been a big fan of Finn or Poe. “Why were you with him anyway?” he asks. 

“Rose said it’d be good to get… you out of my system.”

“Oh… did he?”

“Not really. Time helped mostly. I kept-” she blushes deeply and stops talking.

“What?”

She really wants to talk to him about this. All of her feelings have been suppressed for so long, and now that she’s with him, someone she’s always felt she could say anything to, they’re bubbling out of her mouth.  _ I might never see him again _ , she thinks.  _ He’s the only one I can tell _ . 

“I kept pretending he was you. I kept thinking about you when I was with him. It was the only way I could get turned on. I was just using him,” she presses her hand into her eyes. “I felt so awful about it, Ben. I couldn’t look at myself.”

He’s staring at her, his face unreadable. “Rey,” he whispers. 

“I know, Ben,” she cries, thinking he’s disgusted with her, as she is disgusted with herself. “I just feel so alone. I just reached for anything I could grasp.”

“Rey, I’m so sorry,” he says.

“ _ You’re _ sorry?” Rey asks. “I did this to myself!” She begins crying uncontrollably now; she can no longer speak. 

“Rey, Rey,” Ben is saying, moving to sit next to her on the couch. He takes her hands in his and presses them to his heart. “Rey, baby, I missed you so much. I missed you too, Rey.” He wraps her up in his arms and pulls her so that she’s crying into his chest. He strokes her hair and kisses the top of her head. 

After a while, Rey can finally raise her head, though tears are still leaking out of her eyes. “Ben, I messed up.”

“No, baby, you didn’t. You wouldn’t be happy here.”

“I’m not happy at home, Ben.”

“I should have stayed with you,” he whispers, tucking her hair behind her ear. 

“Ben, I would have felt so awful if you’d given up your dream for me.”

“Rey, none of this, this job, means anything without you.”

“Ben, I love you.”

He holds her face in his hands, cupping his cheeks, “I love you too, Rey, and that’s all that matters. We’ll figure everything else out.”

Rey kisses him hard and suddenly. He is surprised for only a second before pulling her closer to him and returning the kiss. It becomes more intense very quickly. Both of them are desperate to be closer to each other after all this time. They pull their clothes off as their tongues tangle together. 

“Rey,” Ben whispers as she fumbles with the button of his pants. “I’ve thought about you too. I didn’t want anyone else. I just thought about you.”

Rey presses her face into is abs, which are strong and hard against her. 

“Baby,” he says. “It’s okay now.” He pulls her up so that he can kiss her again. Ben picks her up, wrapping her legs around his hips, and carries her to his bedroom. He sets her gently on the bed, kissing her face. She pulls his pants and underwear down and he steps out of them. She pushes her own pants and panties down her legs and he pulls them off her feet. He scoops her up and sets her back down farther up on the bed so that he can lay over her, cradling her in his arms and he settles between her legs. 

“Ben,” she whispers into his mouth. “Ben, I missed you so much.”

“Rey,” is all he replies. 

“Please, Ben, I want all of you.”

“You have me, baby,” he whispers before pushing into her. 

She gasps at the feeling, finally what she needs, filling all of her. She’s missed this, missed him inside her, missed his chest pressed against hers, leaning over her. He kisses her deeply as he fucks into her slowly. She rests her hands on his lower back, feeling his muscles flex as he moves in and out. She pushes her chest into his, opening her legs even farther, letting him get deeper to that place inside her that makes her shake into him. 

“I love you,” she moans and he presses his face into her neck. “I love you, Ben.”

“Rey,” he mumbles into her skin, “I love you. Come for me, baby.” 

She grabs his hair as she comes, her legs shaking against him as she clenches around his cock. He comes with her, filling her with hot come, groaning her name. 

He pulls her against him, covering them up in blankets. 

“What are we going to do, Ben?” Rey asks, placing her hands on his arms wrapped around her. 

“We’ll figure it out. All that matters is that we’re together now.”

She hums in agreement and snuggles closer to his chest. 

* * *

He calls her after he gets off work at 5, “My manager might be able to transfer me to the Google headquarters there!”

“No way, are you serious?” It’s been three weeks since she saw him in California. They talk on the phone almost every day, but she still misses him. 

“Yeah, it’d actually be a promotion! He thinks he can get it done.”

“Ben, that’s amazing!”

“I know right! Everything is coming together.”

“You said it would work out!”

“I’ll let you know when I have more definite news. I love you, Rey.”

“I love you, Ben.”


End file.
